


it takes an ocean not to break

by zauberer_sirin



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Hotels, Kink Negotiation, Light Bondage, Light Dom/sub, Nightmares, Past Child Abuse, Past Sexual Abuse, Skoulson RomFest 2k14, Triggers, not Grant Ward friendly, skoulsonfest2k14
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-30
Updated: 2014-08-30
Packaged: 2018-02-15 09:12:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2223504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/pseuds/zauberer_sirin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Not all scars are as visible as the one on his chest, Coulson realizes. After a wrong move on his part the moment has come for Skye and him to talk about that.</p><p>(Written for the Skoulson RomFest 2k14 - Prompt: Scars)</p>
            </blockquote>





	it takes an ocean not to break

**Author's Note:**

> WARNING: This fic deals with past sexual abuse and child abuse, and with Skye being triggered and having some disturbing nightmares. So be careful when reading.
> 
> Headcanon or not, I think the show has given us enough plausible clues to hint at Skye as a sexual abuse survivor. Not everybody will agree on this, but that's how I see it and write it. This story deals directly with that.

He wouldn't say she makes him forget the world because the opposite is true – they make the world more vivid for each other, she's the one who made him be in the world again. So when they are like this, just the two of them in a locked room, it's never an escape. He can't think about what the opposite of an escape is right now – he can't think about much at all, Skye breathing under him, their stomachs pressed together – but he's pretty sure that's it.

Coulson loves her like this, after the rush of the first time, where everything was kisses against the door and impatient hands working buttons; he loves her like this, resting but responsive after the second time, where everything is fingers and tongues and her scent. He loves her like this, exactly this, afterthought slow kisses where she can still taste herself on his mouth. One hand twisted into the sheets and one hand caressing Coulson's nape, fingers through the soft hair there.

He loves them like this: in the safe laziness of a hotel room, decontextualized so all they have is the familiar each other. Late with the rest of the building probably sleeping, like they are the last people in love on the whole planet. He realizes how ridiculous that sounds. He's foolish and corny, but Skye catches his lips when he offers them. He kisses her slowly, slightly – ghost kisses on her temple, her left eyebrow, her cheek. He wants to kiss her everywhere, touch her everywhere and sees no reason not to. He runs his fingertips across the lines of her forehead, he draws the shape of her cheekbone, he draws the line of her jaw. He gets caught up in it, making a loose fist and brushing his knuckle against the soft skin under her chin, moving up towards her lips.

He brushes the palm of his hand across her mouth.

Then something goes wrong.

He watches Skye's eyes cloud at him when he does that (or before he does that), not recognizing who he is for a beat. She sits up, trying to get away from him, kicking him, pushing him off her.

"No, no, don't do that," Skye says, the tone like she was shouting but muted. Like she was screaming underwater.

Coulson reacts quickly; he pulls away from her, putting as much space between them as the king sized bed will allow.

Skye just stays there, knees pulled to her body, back pressed against the headboard, staring at Coulson with a look of confusion and hurt. Chest heaving with short, pained breaths. He's never seen her like this, this has never happened. What worries Coulson is the he immediately understands what is going on and he he wishes he didn't.

He could scoot up to her and comfort her but Skye doesn't look like she wants to be touched right now. He recognizes that look from being in the field with fellow agents, he knows exactly what is happening here.

"Skye... what did you think I was going to do? Talk to me."

"Nothing. I just... don't like that."

That wasn't a _I don't like_ reaction. Skye had been scared out of her wits. It had lasted less than a split second but it was there. A flashback. Coulson takes a couple of seconds before speaking, to make sure he won't say the wrong thing.

"I saw your eyes. Who did you think I was?" Coulson.

"Shut up a moment," is all Skye replies.

She rubs her closed eyes, letting out a sigh of sudden exhaustion.

"Can you throw me your shirt?" she asks.

It's withing arm's reach, dropped over one of the nightstands.

"Don't you prefer your clothes?" Coulson asks.

Skye shakes her head.

He hands the shirt over. Skye puts it on and buttons it up very slowly and carefully. Coulson wonders if she is giving herself a moment.

"I'm just stressed out," she says. "This shouldn't have been a thing."

She's not outright lying. She is stressed out. The whole point of being here tonight was to spend one day in which she didn't have to look over her shoulder at every moment.

She runs her hands through her hair.

"God I'm so stupid."

"No, you're not. Don't say that."

"Can you get me some water?"

He definitely can do that. He puts on his boxers and his t-shirt and goes to the bathroom. He leaves the tap on for a moment, not just to give Skye a longer reprieve to catch her breath but also so that the water gets colder, he thinks Skye would prefer it cold, very cold.

"Here."

"Thank you."

He sits on the other end of the bed, looking at her.

"How old were you?" he asks, though he's more afraid of her answer than he's ever been of anything in his life. But this is not about him. Who cares if he is afraid.

Skye looks at him. She gives him a tiny sad smile and a slight shake of the head. Coulson nods. She has every right to keep that to herself.

"Do you want me to turn on the tv?" he asks.

Skye agrees. The silence around them was beginning to feel oppresive.

He leaves some dumb 24-hours sport channel on and turns the volume down so that they can talk but there's some comforting indistinguishable noise in the background.

"So. You want to talk about the stress then? Want to talk at all?"

"I don't know. Yes." She looks at him. She arches an skeptical eyebrow. "I don't want you to see me in that light."

"Don't worry about that."

He knows what she means, but she really, really shouldn't worry about that.

"I didn't want to scare you, lashing out at you," she says. "I swear I don't do that often."

"I know."

The fact that this is unprecedented, and it is now of all times, is what worries him. It hasn't happened before between them. And the amount of sex they've had in the last few months have been quite staggering, if he is honest – which isn't that surprising, considering they are not good at wanting things, neither for them, and they are definitely a lot better in here, in a bed, than they are with words.

"I thought you were going to put your hand over my mouth," she says, quietly.

Something in the way she says it makes his heart sink. Part of him wishes they could turn the clock ten minutes, when there were these things Coulson suspected about her, but he hadn't heard firsthand.

"You should have told me about that," he says. "We should have talked. About what you liked, what you didn't like."

He should have done that, Coulson realizes. They usually communicated so well that he forgot Skye is not the kind of person to ask for things. After their first rushed, perfect time in his office he imagined everything else would resolve itself. And it had – until three weeks ago. He should have known better. Done better by her.

"I didn't know I would –" she starts, her voice sharp. "Obviously I wasn't planning on this."

The way she says it Coulson is not sure she means her earlier reaction or their whole relationship.

"What would you have told me? If we had talked?"

Skye gives him a surprised, hard look. He can see her biting her lower lip.

"I would have told you... Never put your hand over my mouth. Never hold me down. Never tell me to keep quiet."

Her voice falters a bit on the last one. Coulson feels the back of her throat sting with something. He can't make it about him. He pulls himself together and tries for a neutral look. If he knows Skye – and god, he does – she wouldn't want his comforting or compassion right now. Most of the time the only thing Skye really wants is for him to listen to her.

"You sure you want me to talk about this?" she asks, like it's going to bother him or something. Like he is the one she should be worrying about.

"If you want to."

"I wasn't planning on it," she tells him, in a way that doesn't end the conversation at all.

"Has it happened before?" he asks.

She shakes her head and shrugs at the same time. "Not really. I thought I had left that kind of stuff behind, really, really behind. Like various states behind and at full, over-the-limit speed."

He gives her a smile.

"You're good at compartimentalizing, too," he says.

"Exactly."

"I suppose you had to be."

He imagines her as a child, having to file away rejection after rejection, until she learned not to take everything to heart or else she couldn't go on walking. The fact that he considers Skye the strongest person he's ever met has nothing to do with the equally undeniable fact that he is deeply in love with her.

Skye pulls the collar of the shirt up, smelling into the fabric.

"But the answer is. No, it's never been that much of a prob – And I should know, because there's been enough... I haven't been saving myself for you, you know that, right, Coulson? There's been a lot of guys. Well, not _a lot_ but..."

He cuts her, a tangent is not what she needs right now. Plus he doesn't really care about that stuff. "Skye. Stop. It's okay. A lot of guys is fine."

She nods. She takes a moment before going on.

"And it's always been cool. I didn't let that affect me. I was always fine, more or less. I didn't think about it."

"What has changed?"

She gestures for him to slide up to her side of the bed. She grabs his t-shirt a moment, pulling him towards her. He positions himself to her left. They are not touching but Skye seems to be okay with this much proximity.

"I don't know. Many things. This is a bit more intense than I'm used to," she tells him, gesturing between them.

 _This_.

He wants to be quick to reassure her: "For me too."

"And then last month Ward escaped from prison and..."

He didn't need the confirmation. He has been watching her the past weeks. Overworking, tensing up like a wire.

"We'll find him and we'll get him," he says. "I promise you, he won't get near you."

Skye shakes her head. Her gaze is clear now, back to normal.

"No, I know that. And May has taught me multiple ways in which I can break every bone in his body. That helps a lot. But him being out there..." Coulson can fill in the gaps. Ward is not the only one _out there_. "That's when the nightmares started, the day he got out. It's kind of pretty predictable, if you think about it."

He nods.

"You know about the nightmares?" Skye asks, reading his face.

"Skye... I sleep in your bed every night. I know about the nightmares."

She reaches out and touches the back of his hand with her fingertips. He wishes she would hold his hand so he could squeeze it, but he's not going to initiate anything. She doesn't hold his hand, but she runs her thumb up and down the grooves of Coulson's knuckle, slowly as if drawing it from memory, a tender touch. She looks up and gives him a smile when she pulls away her hand.

"Why haven't you said anything?" she asks.

"I was hoping you'd come to me with it, in your own time."

"I would have, I swear."

"I know."

"I'm not an idiot, I know this whole five star hotel routine has something to do with you being worried about me being worried about Ward."

"We're all worried."

"Yeah but you..."

She doesn't finish. She scoots over his side, touching her knee to his thigh softly. Nothing else, just _closer_.

"So. What about the nightmares?" Coulson asks.

"Well, they're what you can expect. After..."

"After what he said to you in Cybertek."

She nods, looking down. That hadn't been a pleasant conversation by any means – Coulson had had half a mind to go to Ward's prison cell and do something about it – but he had been glad that Skye could trust him with something like that, and trust that he'd have the right reaction. He tried to. They didn't talk much more that day – it was early days for their relationship, neither of them quite sure how to push the boundaries of their previous boss/subordinate dynamic. But that night he had slept in her room, rather than the other way around, and that hasn't changed until now.

"I guess I was blocking stuff until now," Skye says. She gets this disgusted, disappointed look she always gets when talking about Ward. "I thought I wasn't scared of him. And I'm not, I swear. I'm _not_ scared of Ward. It's just bad dreams. What I told you about? That's what he does, in my nightmares, that's way it came back to me just now. He covers my mouth with his hand and tells me to... I don't know why I'm thinking about this now."

Coulson has his theories but he is no expert. It would be good for Skye to talk to someone who is, but he doesn't want to tell her she has to double the number of people she tells this to so soon. They'll have time to figure things out. For now he is aware she just wants him to listen.

She looks around.

"I'm so sorry," she says, looking mortified of all things. "You went to all the trouble of getting us this amazing room and the dinner and the romantic walk through the city and... you end up having to listen to me whine."

"That doesn't matter. Please don't talk like that."

In fact Coulson is grateful they are in this spacious hotel room. They can talk in peace, without the knowledge that five other people were around and could interrupt them at any point.

"Do you want to order some room service?" he asks.

Skye flashes him a little smile. "Is it too early for breakfast?"

Coulson looks at his watch. It's two in the morning.

"Of course not." He studies the menu for a while, looking for something he knows she likes. "They have pancakes."

"Excellent."

 

+

 

She disappears into the bathroom while the food arrives.

Coulson doesn't hear the shower run and when she comes out again she's still wearing just his shirt. Probably avoiding the guy who brought the tray. He gets that.

They eat their food while disagreeing about the baseball game on the tv. Skye gets distracted a couple of times, but for the most part it's something nice. Coulson is not very hungry but he is glad Skye seems to enjoy the pancakes. She made him order hot chocolate too. For a moment it occurs to him that Skye deserves someone who pampers her a bit more than he does.

Freshened up and full she still wants to talk, but she is also rested enough that all her energy can go to frustration and self-recrimination.

"It's just so freaking unfair, you know," she says. He couldn't agree more. "That this has to happen to me _now_ , when I'm with you. Of all possible moments. In my life. Because I love you and you have to know, you _have to know_ , you are the safest place I've ever been – What? What's that face?"

Coulson feels like a selfish monster but – 

"You've never said that before," he points out.

"What? That I love you?"

"Yeah."

"And what a great moment I've picked to say it."

"Any moment is good... for me to hear it."

He risks initiating the contact now, wanting to touch her arm, but he goes slow, making sure Skye can reject it. He rests the palm of his hand over Skye's wrist gently.

"Is this okay?"

Skye tilts her head in the same way she always does when she is pissed at him.

"You don't have to do that. Be that careful with me."

"You're careful with me."

"Okay, fine, but... Can we just agree that you trust me to be an adult and know what I want enough to tell you if you did something I didn't like?" He nods. "Because ten minutes ago you had your fingers inside me and you were making me moan. And I'm still that person; that's the only person I want you to see when you look at me."

"Fingered and moaning. Got it."

"God, you're so stupid," she says, smiling, and Coulson takes it as a good opening to reach out and touch his mouth to hers. He's still careful, but in a way that's not going to hurt or anger Skye, he hopes.

She opens her mouth slightly and she is the one to break the kiss after a moment, brushing her nose across Coulson's cheek. She lets out a content sigh that makes Coulson's heart expand.

"You taste like pancakes," she points out.

"Coming from you I'll take that as compliment."

"Take off your shirt," she says, in a completely different voice.

Something about it tells him he should argue or pretend he didn't hear it well. So he grabs the collar of his t-shirt and pulls it over his head.

He stands there, sitting by her side, while Skye studies him with hard eyes. 

She's looking at his scar.

Coulson has stopped feeling exposed by it, but Skye's excrutiny seems different somehow.

She runs her index along the line of scarred tissue.

"Do you think it's ugly?"

"Ugly?"

"Do you ever look in the mirror and think that if people could see it they'll think you're ugly too, even though you didn't do it to yourself, it was done to you? Ever thought that?"

He grabs her hand, pressing it hard against his chest.

"You know I have."

"What did you do about it?"

Nothing, he thinks, _you_ did it.

"Convinced myself that no one needed to see it. Ever."

"Oh, well, that didn't work out," she points out. No need. They are here, sitting on the bed. They have seen each other naked countless times, after a slow start. Skye wiggles her hand from under his and starts drawing the line of the scar downwards.

"It worked for a while," he explains. "I was pretty smug about it too. As if shutting myself would make me a better agent, a better Director."

"You did that," she says. "Shut yourself from people. I hated that."

He smiles at her. That's why that phase hadn't lasted very long. Because Skye kind of tore it all down. Because she hated seeing him like this. Because she loved him. She loves him – sometimes just thinking about that baffles Coulson.

But now she looks at him like she wants him to keep talking. So he does.

"I became sort of enamoured with the idea that no one would ever get to see it. At least in an intimate setting – teammates, missions, medical issues, that was fine. But the moment I stopped thinking about it as a battle scar and admitting it was part of who I was... it gave me a great excuse to concentrate on the work and kind of accept I would never have to share it with someone else. Not in that way." He pauses – Skye's eyes are big and full of that something that always makes him feel raw and exposed. "Then you happened."

"I'm not sorry about that." 

"No. Me neither. It made me face the fact that the scar had nothing to do with it. I had been that way long before the Battle of New York. Never really let people know me."

"Wow," Skye says. "That's deep stuff. I know you're just opening up like this for my benefit but still, it's nice."

"You're making fun of me now?"

"No, I'm not." She keeps silent for a moment. "Audrey?"

Coulson nods. "Being with you made me regret not having let her in. Know me. I think she would have liked me."

Skye scrunches her face. "I'm not sure I like the idea that being with me makes you wish you had stayed with your ex..."

"That's not – Skye?"

"Yes?"

"I want to kiss you. Is that okay?"

He thinks she is going to chew his head off for asking again. But she doesn't. And this is not that kind of question.

She says yes.

He leans over, closing his mouth over hers. Skye has hers already half open when he touches her, welcoming him. He kisses her for a while, blood buzzing in his head, and his whole body singing its usual Skye song.

Afterwards she grabs his chin in her hand, holding him at a distance, studying his eyes like she wants something very precise there. Then she lets him go, dropping her hand to draw the line of his neck. 

"I did promise myself I wouldn't tell anyone."

"What about the people at the orphanage?"

Skye lets out a snort and the sound pierces something inside Coulson.

"Every time they took me back from another foster home they asked what I had done this time. What _I_ had done. When I told them nothing they said I was a liar. When this time I had finally something to tell them they said I was a liar anyway. No, I knew I was on my own."

Coulson wraps his fingers around her naked knee.

"If you ever want to burn that place down, I will buy you the gasoline," he says.

"That's rather uncharacteristic of you to say, Director. But it's okay, you know that's not my style."

"No, it's not."

Some days he wishes it was. He wouldn't love her so much if it were but – maybe Skye would be happier, if she didn't have to swallow her anger constantly. She reaches over to close her hand over his on her leg.

"Miles knew about it, though," she says. "I was young and silly and I thought that I had to tell him, if I loved him. But when I told him he started going on about how we could find the guy and hack his accounts and ruin his life. And it made me feel so small and stupid. Suddenly it wasn't about me anymore. At the time I thought it was just that he loved me so very much. It wasn't that – I learned that my first instinct had been the right one. I shouldn't tell anyone."

Coulson pulls his hand from under Skye's, running his fingers along the length of her shin, dropping it to caress the skin over her ankle.

Skye regards him with a sad smile. "Nothing of this surprises you, does it."

"Skye."

"Because you are a profiler and you knew the moment you met me."

"In here I'm not a profiler. I'm your lover and your partner."

He didn't know. He always knew Skye wasn't as easygoing as everybody else assumed. But it took him a bit of time to figure out the specifics. In part because Skye never complains, so Coulson wasn't really aware of how good she was at letting others treat her as they wanted, without a consequence. What might have passed for meekness Coulson knew was pure survival instinct.

"If none of this is helping," he tells her, "or if you believe it's making things worse. You need to follow your instincts, if you think you shouldn't tell me, that's probably the correct answer. If you want to pack up and go back to the –"

"No, no," she protests. A bit panicked, then softer: "No, please, I like it here. I want to stay for a while."

"Okay."

Suddenly she rolls her shirt a bit, exposing the pink skin of her scar. She runs her fingers over it.

"I like this one, though," she says. Coulson looks at it, questioning. "If people saw it I could tell them how I got it. How the bad guys shot at me. I'm not ashamed of it. I don't care if it's ugly. It's different, having a scar you can be proud of."

"I hadn't thought about it that way," Coulson says, looking at his own.

"Of course not. Because you're an idiot."

"You're pushing it."

She smiles, gripping his shoulder. He loves her like this.

Then she goes serious again.

"When Ward told me about his childhood, the deal with his family." She pauses, waiting for Coulson to nod. Yes, he knows all about that. "I thought that we were the same, in a way, I was attracted to that, I was attracted to him. And then when I found out who he really was I thought _oh god, what if we are the same_."

"You proved that's not the case."

"But he still believes that."

"He doesn't get to decide," Coulson tells her.

"No."

Skye lies down on her side.

"Come here," she tells him.

Coulson copies her gesture, sliding down the bed, his head on his arm.

Skye presses her lips together, like she wants to say something else. She doesn't, for a while anyway. She touches his cheek, kissing him slowly yet hungrily.

She explores his mouth with long, deep kisses. It's wonderfully frustrating the way things have always been between them. For a moment Coulson forgets what they were talking about and it's just like any other time; it escalates even if they will themselves to slow down. It's Skye who presses their bodies together and wriggles one leg between his knees. He moves his hands up her back, grasping at her shirt on the spot between her shoulderblades.

Skye breaks the kiss abruptly, panting and with a desperate expression on her face.

"I love you so much. I want to make love to you, so badly," she tells him. He believes her; he can see it in her eyes, the lust and the love, but something else, too. "But I'm scared."

There is no point in telling her she doesn't have to rush or push herself. Those would be platitudes. He doesn't want to offer platitudes. He offers himself instead. And Skye will do what Skye always does; figure an answer on her own.

"How do you feel about being tied up?" Skye asks him.

Coulson doesn't miss a beat. "I'm fine with it if you are."

"I don't want you to be fine, I want you to like the idea."

He swallows, guilty about what he's feeling right now. "There are many things I want you to do to me. Believe me, I like this idea."

"You think it means there's something wrong with me?"

He shakes his head. "Of course not."

"Do you see the logic in it?"

"Yes."

"Do you think I'm talking too much?"

"Never."

She smiles at that. If only she knew. It was her talking what made him fall in love in the first place. She talked and talked and kept talking until he started understanding things, and by then he needed her to talk or he would have been lost. And by then he had started loving the voice as well as the words. He never wants her to stop talking. It's her silence which worries him. And Skye is full of silences.

He kisses her, grabbing her by the back of her head gently. The kiss gets her worked up again. She bites his lower lip a bit more enthusiastically than usual, trying to fight the frustration of not getting as close as she wants. Coulson understands that _complitely_. Sometimes when he is with her a feeling of hopelessness comes over him; nothing could ever be enough.

"Have you done it before?" she asks.

It's funny that he doesn't hesitate or feels the need to hide his own past history.

"Yes," he says.

Skye arches her eyebrows, impressed.

"I like that about you," she says.

"What?"

"That you've had experience, you've lived a lot." He squints his eyes at her. "No, I don't mean you're old."

"I'm not old," he protests.

"But you've done your things. It makes me feel like you're not settling, like I am a choice. You know what's out there for you and you could be somewhere else, but you're with me."

"I know you don't like it when I get corny but I don't think anyone in their right mind could call being with you _settling_."

Her eyes get all focused and serious.

"Get your tie," she says.

"You meant now?"

"Yes."

"I didn't think you'd want... anything else... tonight." He wants to kiss her and touch her, but he's hesitant to do anything else. He steadies himself. "We can wait."

"I know that. But maybe it means something, that I want it _now_." She frowns at herself, second-guessing. "You think that's all right?"

"I think if that's what you want... It'll be fine. We can stop whenever you need."

"Ditto, Coulson. If you're not into it, tell me, okay? I don't want this to be some sort of favor you're doing me."

He agrees.

"Your tie?"

He does as she says, retrieving his tie from the under pile of clothes on the chair. For some reason he folds it before giving it to Skye, which is silly.

"It's a very nice tie," he tells her.

"It is."

Skye pulls the length of the tie between her index and her middle finger. Coulson feels like he could happily scream at that. He knows this is Skye's show, Skye's issue, but he can't help himself, he feels his bones become warm liquid just watching her hands. He loves her hands. Has he ever told her? He should tell her he loves her hands.

"I love you," is all that comes out instead.

He moves up so she can easily tie him to the headboard. A tie is not the ideal item – if she wants to do this again with a bit of preparation Coulson has some suggestions.

"Too tight?" she asks.

He shakes his head.

Skye kisses his mouth, his neck, his throat. She breathes hot breath against his skin, noses against his clavicle. She moves her lips across the curve of his collarbone. She closes them around his nipple.

"Fuck," he groans. 

Skye smiles at that. She smiles against the boundary between his scar and everything else.

"Good," she comments, moving her hands to his hips. He arches his back, lifting off the bed to make it easier for her to remove his boxers.

He is being too eager, but he guesses it can only be a good thing in this situation.

She runs her fingers over hot skin, teasingly drawing the length of his cock. She uses her nails, tearing a surpised _Oh_ noise from somewhere deep inside Coulson's lungs.

"You like that?"

"Well..."

She looks smug, but also very focused.

"What else do you like?"

"I like it when you wear my clothes," he says, breathlessly. He didn't think he'd ever admit that.

Skye runs one hand over the shirt appreciatively.

"I like it, too," she says. "It smells like you."

That goes directly to his cock. "Oh, god."

"What else you like?"

Everything, he thinks.

"I like it when you fuck me. Please, Skye, fuck me."

He thinks she might make a joke about how unsightly is for the Director of SHIELD to beg, like she has done many times (it didn't matter, he is going to keep begging; she loves it, _he_ loves it) but she doesn't this time.

Instead she straddles his lap, letting him know she's wet – Coulson is caught a bit by surprise. People are complicated. He could never know what Skye has been through, how she really feels, as much as he wants, as much as he tries. He owes Skye not pretending he _can_. He can only be here for her, and love her in his own limited way, and hope that counts for something.

She rubs herself against the head of his cock, grabbing Coulson's upper arms for balance. He mutters and then groans and then pants words of encouragement. Or he hopes they are; he's not entirely sure what he is saying here, except her name all over again and attempts at describing how good it is for him. Not pleads for her to take it further. In her own time she eventually slides, taking him slow, breath by breath. Coulson never thought someone could feel this utterly familiar and constantly surprising at the same time. He thinks about what he told her about his scar and his bullshit fear of intimacy. If intimacy was this, this thing he has with Skye, he was a fool to put it off for so long. All those months telling himself he was too old for her, that it was unprofessional and inappropriate – Skye is right, he's an idiot.

Skye rides him slowly and deeply. He loves it when she is on top like this. He would try to tell her but he's afraid of coming up with just another embarrassingly earnest confession. Oh, he is planning on more of those, but later. Right now, he's worried about other things.

"Feels good?" he asks.

She nods and lets out a noise of approval, her eyes going soft. Sometimes if he concentrates in those eyes Coulson believes she might be older than him. Her eyes dart above his head. She watches him fight against the restraints as he bucks against her. She seems fascinated by the sigh. She shivers. God, he wants her to do so many things to him.

She bends down, opening her mouth over Coulson's neck and licking a strip to his jaw.

"I'm close," he tells her, appalled at himself.

Appalled, he thinks again. This is not about his pleasure. This is about her control.

"It's okay," she says, bearing down on him almost painfully.

"But... _you_...?"

"I said I wanted to make love to you. Don't worry about me."

"But I want to make you come."

"Phil..." she lets out a quiet moan when he rolls his hips under hers to make a point.

That's a nice noise she makes – Skye is normally quiet in bed, which, yeah, Coulson is not actually an idiot.

"Okay, sit up," she says.

She starts undoing the knot around his hands.

"Skye?"

"I want you to touch me."

"Are you sure?"

"I am."

The knot is loose and it comes off easily in Skye's hands.

The feeling of relief when he's free from the restraint is almost enough to make Coulson come. He tries to hold it off. He focuses on Skye instead. He brings his hands up to her breasts, slowly, carefully, and she falls against his palms, moaning at the sensation of his thumb across her nipple. It feels so good to make her feel good. It's always been the case but tonight specially.

Coulson brings his hand between their bodies, feeling himself inside Skye. This he knows Skye likes, he is turning to the familiar for a moment, to give her what she wants. Even so he comes first, happy to keep touching her after his body has gone limp and useless. They stay like that for a moment, Skye flattening her palms against his stomach, eyes closed.

"Mm?" he asks, rather inarticulate, watching the ceiling.

"Pretty much," Skye replies, kissing her shoulder and taking his arm in her hands, wanting to see.

The skin around his wrists looks a bit pink-ish but he knows that'll disappear by tomorrow morning.

She kisses it anyway.

Coulson remembers he loves this part: when they are both spent and half sore but unable to let go of each other. They are not cuddly people but if he lies on his back and Skye throws her arm across his chest and rests her head under his shoulder and she holds on a little bit tighter than usual and Coulson presses his eyes shut together and presses his mouth against Skye's temple, muttering her name for a while, well, no one is here to judge them for it anyway. He had meant tonight to be something better than the last few weeks for Skye. That might have been too ambitious.

"I can't promise I won't freak out on you again," she says, touching her fingertips to the valleys of his ribcage. There's something almost normal in those words – that once this is out there, between them, it's easier to handle.

"That's okay."

"You must be thinking I'm way too much work, right?"

"That wasn't what I was thinking at all," he tells her, rather sleepily.

"What were you thinking?"

He's thinking he feels guilty that someone had to hurt Skye for her to find a strange path to him.

He's thinking he loves her.

He's thinking who the fuck cares if this is too much work, he's willing to do that work. Skye was willing to accept the handful that Phil Coulson is, after all.

He's thinking he loves her.

He's thinking the world is a horrible place and he can't do anything to protect them from that knowledge, because Skye already knows too well.

He's thinking he loves her.

He's thinking about scars.

He's thinking he loves her.

He's thinking every hour they don't catch Grant Ward he's failing her.

He's thinking he loves her.

"I'd tell you," he says. "But you don't like corny."

She looks up, resting her chin over his heart. He can see her rolling her eyes at him.

"I just said I didn't like corny before," she explains. "I don't mind it with you."

"Well, now I'm too embarrassed to say," he teases.

"Were you thinking how much you love me?"

"Pretty much."

"Corny."

"Sleep a bit," he tells her.

"Yeah," she agrees, pressing her face to his chest, brushing her lips against the layer of hair, lazily. "But be ready for the second breakfast."

"Panckakes again?"

"Is there any other kind of breakfast?"

He laughs, feeling how Skye raises and falls with the shaking.

"Thank you," she says, when Coulson thinks she is already asleep.

"Of course."

"Some day I'll tell you everything."

"There's no rush," he mutters, feeling the pull of sleep himself.

Coulson lets himself fall asleep, wondering if there will be any nightmares. There probably will, and nothing he has done and will do can soften the hurt Skye had to endure. It doesn't work like that. No matter how much he loves her – and he's pretty sure he's muttering more embarrassing confession into her sleeping form right now – that fact can't change what happened. And love can't stop the nightmares. But it will be here once the nightmares end. Coulson hopes that's enough for now.


End file.
